Grup d'Investigació Social i Educativa de l'Activitat Física i l'Esport

El passat 16 de març, el membre del grup Víctor Labrador va presentar una part del seu treball de recerca amb el títol Educational strategies of Physical Education teachers towards students with ADHD in primary school: a cases study.

A continuació podeu llegir un resum del mateix i veure el document complert clicant el següent enllaç:

The Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is, together with the oppositional defiant disorder, the most frequently diagnosed disorder in school-aged children (August, Realmuto, McDonald, Hugeret, & Crosby, 1996).

Nowadays, an over diagnosis of ADHD exists. In Spain, more than 9% of the pupils (5 – 15 years old) are diagnosed with ADHD (Lavigne & Romero, 2010). Martínez-León (2006) confirm that epidemiological investigations indicate that there are significant sex differences in favour of males with a ratio of 2-1 in samples of general population, and 9-1 in samples of clinical origin.

ADHD students are characterized by the difficulty to pay attention to non-selective activities, hyperactivity, impulsivity with uncontrolled reactions and unstable personality, which causes difficulties in learning, work, recreational activities and social environment. Furthermore, this difficulties can be accentuated in unstructured environments (Mulas, Mattos, Hernández-Muela, & Gandía, 2005).

During physical activities, children with ADHD exhibit age-inappropriate features of hyperactivity, excessive impulsivity or problems in lateralization (Reid & Norvilitis, 2000).

Since physical educator teachers (PE teachers) have a privileged position in observing children in many settings, they can be important informants about children’s behaviour. There is a lack in the existing literature concerning the knowledge of PE teachers’ beliefs about students’ emotional and/or behavioural problems in school settings and the impact of these beliefs on their teaching efficacy and behaviour (Efstratopoulou, Janssen, & Simons, 2012).

In this presentation I will show the project design of our research and how it will work. The objectives are: to identify the behaviours patterns in Physical Education (PE) classes of students diagnosed with ADHD; to analyse PE teachers’ education strategies towards students with ADHD; and to describe the effects on students’ behaviour because teachers’ education strategies.

The full presentation is available here.